They call us insane because we want the truth. They call us insane because they say we want too much. They say we are crazy because we do not settle for less. They say “take what you can get” as if we will be “getting” something.
If you ever defended the two state solution as a Palestinian, know that you are throwing away land. Know that land in the 48 borders was Palestine, and the only reason it is not today, is because of racism and greed.
For all the non Palestinian “activists” who believe the one state solution will not work, please, do not advise the Palestinians to leave what is lawfully theirs. If you want me to state why I think it is lawful and very legitimate, (other than the fact that it was taken forcefully, other than the fact that there are more than 4 million refugees waiting to go back, other than the fact that the one state solution is already in place along with a system of apartheid) the UN can explain it. The UN declaration of Human Rights article 13 states (I know this by heart)
“Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.” The refugees have a right to return, no debate needed about that.
To Chomsky’s followers: I do not see Noam Chomsky as a leader on these issues, but as a Zionist, who supports and accepts Israel as an international Jewish state.
In an Israeli interview, Chomsky explains his stance: “Israel should have--should have--all the rights of a state in the international system, no more and no less.”
But just the fact that Israel exists as a Jewish state is an issue. That fact cancels out the Palestinians and their rights in the international system, as Muslims and Christians. Chomsky does not mention where the Palestinians stand. .
When he does talk about the Palestinians, it is not a strong stance. He says the right of return is unfair for the refugees because it is false hope. Well people feed off of hope! The Palestinians live for this, they have hope and always possessed hope. Do you think we could have been able to stay strong for 60 years if hope was not there? So Chomsky’s argument is for killing hope (because it is “unrealistic”), and therefore, killing the movement. It is as if he and others are lecturing, imposing ideas in activists’ heads to kill off the hope. And I ask, why should Palestinians listen? Are they going to listen to the U.S., or the U.N. or the E.U. or maybe to Israel itself? No. I don’t believe that Palestinians should even listen to other Arab countries (we all know Arab nationalism and “brotherhood” died the same day as President Nasser of Egypt ). And why listen to any “activist” or “friend” who will tell you to leave what you have stolen from you?
Here is another quote from Chomsky about the nature of his advocacy:
I will keep here to advocacy in the serious sense: accompanied by some kind of feasible program of action, free from delusions about “acting on principle” without regard to “realism” -- that is, without regard for the fate of suffering people.
If you take that statement apart it suggests that the “suffering people” need to stay and suffer where they are and not have any hope, so experience their misery, without hope. The problem with this is that he does not even talk about a feasible solution for the refugee issue. The refugees need to establish themselves where they are at now.
That might be possible-- except that many do not have equal rights because of their refugee status. They do not have proper paperwork, or they are stateless, or they get kicked out of where they are, or they are below the poverty line, and all these issues are not easily fixed. I know the refugees, and the issue is complicated, but the bottom line is that Chomsky’s suggestion is not a feasible answer.
And therefore, hope is key, and this hope is not some crazy fantasy like growing wings or even winning the lottery kind of hope. No it is lawful hope, like the hope for the sun to rise every morning, rational, legitimate and righteous.
The fact is there is one state already implemented, so the Palestinians are only asking for equal rights in the land. Chomsky says that the right way to get to the “one state” is to sign the “two state” first. How is this a feasible way? In doing so the Palestinians will need to sign the “two state” and throw away all the land within the 48 borders, then find a way to regain it all? How? Are we going to flip the script and have Palestinians occupy what will be a fully legitimate Israel that the Palestinians and the international consensus agreed on?
The Palestinian movement is still in a fragile stage. There is no room for uncertainty, there is no room to question if the right of return is a good idea or not, or if the BDS movement is creating a cult (as Chomsky has also suggested). His belief on this issue is far from where the movement should be. We cannot settle for what is “realistic” because that means settling for what is most convenient to the U.S. and Israel. This issue is clear, and you are with us or against us.
What the refugees don’t have is a vote on their own fate. Abu Quisling thinks only of his own party on the WB and destroying Hamas. Mr Peace Prize thinks only of “negotiations” to which the refugees aren’t invited.
People without a vote, without a voice, are the people who will be sold out.
What you should ask yourself is the following. Knowing what you know today, would you have recommended that the Palestinians accept the 1947 UN partition resolution? It seems that your answer would still be no even though you know it entails decades of suffering for the Palestinian refugees! That is what Chomsky means about balancing idealism and human suffering. The Palestinians had already made the mistake you are advocating in 1947 and now you are repeating it. As long as you insist on poking the eye of the US and Israel instead of making the Palestinian situation better, you will lose. History is clear on that. At what point does hope become delusion?
I fully agree with eee in all of the points he makes.
Hey eee, if a home invader had raped your mother and then told you that he was going to kill her to rid her of the psychological trauma, would you let him?
Avi,
How is that even relevant? Historical compromises have always been made for the benefit of the people involved and in spite of ideology.
Your logic would dictate that a person whose child was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber would never agree to a compromise.
in such a situation, merely to refuse to compromise would be a sign of progress. In fact, in such a situation, Israel typically exacts a 100-fold punishment. The kidnapping of a soldier — a SOLDIER, mind you, not a civilian — resulted in the intentional killing, by Israel, of over a thousand innocent civilians.
This is your reality: Zionists should deceive and steal a grandmother’s home, land and rights driving her into misery and poverty and deprive her grandchildren and great grandchildren of equal rights and cheat them out of a rightful legacy.
Millions of Palestinian grandmothers and their grandchildren suffered this fate at the hands of Zionists.
Try as you may you can’t disguise the ugly reality of Zionism with trite rationalizations.
What rationalizations? The fact is that wrong decisions lead to suffering. You want to continue making wrong ones, go ahead.
Apparently, the simple fact that your argument has long been bankrupt, logically, morally and legally, has alluded you.
But, just in case you want to learn something, here’s a clue; Israel creates facts and then shills like you pronounce that the Palestinains need to work with the facts with which they are faced. That you think you’re pulling a fast one on everyone else is only indicative of your deeply delusional mindset.
What rationalizations? Like the one you just gave me above.
Negotiations have been flawed from the beginning because they were based on an ideology, Zionism, that is supremacist and racist.
Zionism must be removed from the equation. That’s why negotiations didn’t work in 1947 and they won’t work today. Because the premise, Zionism, is flawed, it’s inhumane, it’s immoral and it doesn’t belong in the 21st Century. Maybe it belongs alongside 1930′s fascist ideology.
That’s what you’re unwilling to admit because you’re still clinging to that false illusion that has more than proven just how flawed and disastrous it is. But you’re still reluctant to admit it.
The question i s – whose suffering?
The Zionist decision is always to let the Palestinians do the suffering.
kalithea, your word-choices brought to mind tales from Torah: with the help of his mother, Jacob “cheated Esau out of a rightful legacy.”
eee, below, agrees with W E B Dubois that “wrong decisions lead to suffering.” Pondering the story of Esau and Jacob, and the “rationalizations” that upend right and wrong, Dubois wrote:
Wrong decisions lead to suffering.
well said, eee. Learn from your own scriptures rather than replicate them.
since when has justice for those wronged by criminals ever been a wrong decision?
maximalistNarrative :
Good, now that our champion is back, he can speak for you, so you don’t need to post… correct?
(Although I’ll miss your particular brand of humour)
>> What you should ask yourself is the following. Knowing what you know today, would you have recommended that the Palestinians accept the 1947 UN partition resolution? It seems that your answer would still be no even though you know it entails decades of suffering for the Palestinian refugees!
How convenient that you start with the proposed partition. The real question should be: Knowing what we know today – that Israel would become a immoral and lawless Zio-supremacist colonial enterprise engaged in ethnic cleansing, human rights abuses, land theft and various forms of destruction – should partition ever have happened in the first place?
The only right answer, the only moral answer, is ‘no’.
The region should have been permitted and encouraged to transform – through the self-determination of its native inhabitants – into an independent, democratic and egalitarian nation.
You are missing the point again. The Palestinians are at a similar junction to the one they were in 1947, and they have to make choices. What Sarah is suggesting is to repeat the same mistake of 1947. Chomsky is clearly correct about the need for realism to temper suffering.
>> You are missing the point again. The Palestinians are at a similar junction to the one they were in 1947, and they have to make choices. What Sarah is suggesting is to repeat the same mistake of 1947.
So…the point is: The Palestinians refused a shitty deal once and now, after decades of oppression and destruction, they’re being offered another shitty deal, and you think they should take it. Damned if you aren’t a “humanist” cut from the same cloth as RW – the lack of justice bothers neither one of you.
Bull! Then they were about to be cheated out of half their land today they’re about to be cheated out of 2/3 of their land, sovereignty and full rights.
Hey, I demand that all Jews killed in the holocaust be brought to life. That is the only way for justice to prevail! I will accept nothing less. If you do not agree with me, you are not a humanist.
the inescapable implication of what you are saying, eee, is that Israel was as rapacious and immoral in 1947 as it is today.
courageous admission. you are to be commended.
From 2003 :
link to electronicintifada.net
The first attempt at partitioning the land between Jews and Arabs, undertaken by the United Nations in 1947, resulted in the Palestinian majority being offered 47 percent of its historic homeland, with the rest allocated to a new Jewish state. The Palestinians rejected the plan and the ensuing war established Israel.
The Palestinians had to wait 46 years for the next offer: Under the 1993 Oslo accords, the Palestinians were to receive 22 percent of their homeland – the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. They accepted the terms, but Israel never got around to returning most of the land. Then Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel decided to speed things up and negotiate a final agreement at Camp David in 2000, “generously” offering the Palestinians 80 percent of the 22 percent of the 100 percent of their original homeland. Yasser Arafat refused to sign and the second intifada began.
The e-mail’s payoff line is that Barak’s successor, Ariel Sharon, has devised an even more miserly take-it-or-leave-it deal: the Palestinians can have a state on 42 percent of the 80 percent of the 22 percent of 100 percent of their original homeland.
The funniest part is that it isn’t a joke. Sharon is deadly serious. The proof is not to be found in the “road map,” which is diverting attention from Sharon’s real goal, which is to redraw the territorial contours of historic Palestine himself – in concrete and barbed wire.
In 17 AD, before the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem, Jews were split. On the one hand, there were those who wanted to fight the Romans, and on the other hand there were those who wanted to reconcile with the Romans and surrender.
In the end, those who wanted to fight the Romans and fight for freedom, lost. The temple was destroyed.
So, in hindsight, according to your lopsided logic, those who wanted to surrender were right; had they accepted the deal, Jews wouldn’t be forced to the diaspora for 2000 years.
In addition, in Metsadah, Jews wanted to fight against the Roman empire. Eventually, they barricaded themselves and committed mass suicide, however. According to Judaism, that was a sin. These days, those who committed that suicide are glorified as heroes in Israel.
So the bottom line is that you’re a run-of-the-mill hack. Now, respond by saying, “Durrr…What does that have anything to do with this?”
>> Hey, I demand that all Jews killed in the holocaust be brought to life. That is the only way for justice to prevail! I will accept nothing less. If you do not agree with me, you are not a humanist.
You’ve moved from ridiculous to downright stupid. Jews were killed, Nazis were – and continue to be – held accountable, and reparations were – and continue to be – made. That’s justice.
What has been done – and what continues to be done – to Palestinians is hateful and immoral.
You are a fool, a hateful Zio-supremacist and, quite clearly, a troll. I shall feed you no longer.
DON’T FEED THE TROLL!!
>> What has been done – and what continues to be done – to Palestinians is hateful and immoral.
I forgot to add a piece: What has been done – and what continues to be done – to Palestinians is hateful and immoral. Israel has not been held accountable, reparations have not been made, Israel continues to steal, destroy and kill, and fools like you and RW continue to blame the Palestinians while attempting to justify your foolishness as “justice”.
Then let’s make the right ones. One state with equal rights and votes to every inhabitant and right of return to all those dispossessed. Simple and right. Agree eee?
“The funniest part is that it isn’t a joke.”
Maybe, but I damn sure wish I had thought of the handle “Hugh Bris”. You are to be commended.
“Knowing what you know today, would you have recommended that the Palestinians accept the 1947 UN partition resolution? It seems that your answer would still be no even though you know it entails decades of suffering for the Palestinian refugees!”
This is the most dishonest, disgusting meme of Zionism as dishonest and disgusting as the usage of “they want to drive us into the sea” to prejudice public opinion.
It’s with this meme that Palestinians are being humiliated, cheated and deceived repeatedly.
The suffering of the Palestinians was NOT caused by their refusal to accept the Partition Plan. It was caused by ISRAEL’s REFUSAL to accept it in fact instead of merely in name. The UN Partition Plan prohibited everything that Israel did to the Palestinians; stealing their land, expelling most of them from the country, denying those who remained their civil rights. If the Palestinians had been allowed to vote and had voted for the plan that would not have prevented Israel from doing exactly what it did, which was in egregious violation of universal human rights AND the UN Partition Plan.
And after Israel massively violated the Plan in 1948 and beyond, I’m sure that, had the Palestinians agreed to the UN plan, some pompous-assed Israeli would have blamed it all on the Palestinians for having AGREED to the Plan, because its never Israels fault for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, and robbing them of their birthright as human beings. Israel and its citizens need to grow up and admit that what happened was the fault of Israel and no one else. Blame shifting simply shows how childish you are.
Thank you, you just finished describing the effects of Zionism.
“It was caused by ISRAEL’s REFUSAL to accept it in fact instead of merely in name.”
You don’t get it or you just refuse to admit it. Israel’s refusal to set just boundaries and to provide equal rights for Palestinians is all Zionist doing! To do otherwise would mean betraying Zionism.
Zionism is incompatible with Democracy and the rule of law. This is what makes it delusional. And maybe, maybe you have the best of intentions, and are merely the unsuspecting tool. Eventually, your true loyalty whether to humane Democratic values and justice or Zionism will be gleaned from your words.
so your saying knowing that if they said no that the zionist force would have started a war they should have just given it to them. your right the answer is no. No one should ever give up their property simply because someone else wants and demands it. the palestinians should get all of their lands back.
eee
The Palestinians didn’t actually have a say in accepting UNGA Res 181.
Furthermore because Jewish forces were already in control of territories slated for the new Arab state by the 14th May 1948, under Plan Dalet, they could not have declared independence even if they wished.
Your ‘history’ is full of holes.
Israel is the tragic flaw for many people. Ideological nationalism not only dehumanizes its victims, it debases its adherents who allow the inevitable dehumanizing by their rationalizations justifying such treatment of people who are inconveniently not members of that nation and interfere with its expansion and glorification.
A good example of what Chomsky alludes to. How is the negotiation going to get anywhere with that attitude?
‘Negotiation’ is going nowhere. Israel has no intention of negotiating anything. It simply demands that Palestinians accept the pathetic few crumbs it offers: a life of captivity, humiliation and no hope. This is deliberate, in the hope that somehow they wither away. They are not being offered any ‘choice’. Sarah is absolutely correct that a one state ‘solution’ has already been implemented – Palestinians are supposed to accept that and live in a few circumscribed ghettos with no civil or human rights. And she is also right that no human being should accept this, as the UN clearly agree.
It is entirely typical that smug Zionists like you put the blame on Palestinians for not lying down and surrendering everything in the face of Israeli fascism.
as I recall the eee of days of yore (Eyore?), that eee was not at all articulate in English, as if English was a second language, very imperfectly expressed.
This eee writes quite smoothly in English. Amazing progress or troll?
Maybe two people using same moniker. The other one must be on leave.
You’re right. The best attitude is to use force like a typical Zionist, deceive and blackmail others to have things your way and then when all else fails, whine about anti-Semitism.
You exhibit the same dementia with which Israel’s leadership has been struck.
The historical record shows that Israel is not interested, nor was it ever interested in seeing a viable Palestinian state, partition or not. So, fold your hasbara stand and go practice your Hebrew at a local Ulpan.
“The fact is there is one state already implemented, so the Palestinians are only asking for equal rights in the land. Chomsky says that the right way to get to the “one state” is to sign the “two state” first. How is this a feasible way? In doing so the Palestinians will need to sign the “two state” and throw away all the land within the 48 borders, then find a way to regain it all? [...]
We cannot settle for what is “realistic” because that means settling for what is most convenient to the U.S. and Israel. This issue is clear, and you are with us or against us.”
I couldn’t agree more. Norman Finkelstein states that there is a Holocaust Industry; I agree, but there is also a “2-state solution industry” that keeps the Palestinians locked in limbo. There are some people sincerely working for to restore FULL RIGHTS for Palestinians; not what they consider is right, not what Palestinians should SETTLE for and especially not what is best for Israel.
The 2-state solution is an INDUSTRY, the “peace plan” is an INDUSTRY, J Street is an INDUSTRY and there are others pushing for less than half the pie for Palestinians pretending they care about what is best for Palestinians; pretending that they care about the suffering of Palestinians, benefiting from this industry when what they really care about is saving Zionism. They’re in the business of protecting Zionism and not to do everything to restore full rights to Palestinians. The two-state solution is dead for Palestinians and everyone who believes that human and legal rights are for everyone should be fighting for this and not for a 2-state solution which will cheat Palestinians of which is legally, RIGHTFULLY theirs. Once Palestinians sign away their full rights in exchange for ambiguity and less than what is legally theirs, there is no turning back. Why should the Palestinians pay for settlement expansion with their rights? The onus of responsibility lies with Israel that broke the law repeatedly stealing from the Palestinians and now Israel must sacrifice Zionism to make it right.
So now, let’s all be completely honest here: either you are for Zionism, Israel and the two-state solution, or your are for FULL RIGHTS for the Palestinians and equal rights for all. There is NO OTHER WAY of approaching this and to state that there is, is to cheat and deceive Palestinians, prolong their misery by holding on to a pipe dream (hundreds of thousands of settlers will not pack up and go willingly) and to profit from the 2-STATE SOLUTION INDUSTRY.
It’s time to quit the pretense, to drop the 2-state solution and especially, drop Zionism from the equation and fight for full and equal rights for Palestinians, anything less is dishonest, unjust and hypocritical.
I was disheartened by a comment Gideon Levy made at the end of a discussion at Columbia University not long ago. He said Palestinians should give up seeking “perfect justice” and understand that “realities” would have to be considered.
{once again, what is being done is creating for Jews/Israel a category sui generis which conveys upon Jews exemptions from the norms applied to all others, and favors Jews above all other. When are Jews going to figure out that this attitude and behavior becomes resented, eventually, by people who are put in the “other” category apropos Jews?}
{ah, but that is not the standard of justice: justice is not based on “whose rights are bigger or stronger” but on truth and facts supported by evidence, not on hasbara enforced with more powerful means of killing.}
Levy’s concept of justice is based on that noted Jewish jurist, Leon Uris, in Exodus, the zionist propaganda novel-movie commissioned by Public relations expert Edward Gottlieb. Gideon Levy considers “pure justice” impossible and urges for “relative justice,” in consideration of Jews who have created “irreversible” injustices. In Exodus, Uncle Akiva explains that ” justice is “an abstraction”:
Now that I review Uncle Akiva’s comments, a way forward appears: Akiva seems to understand ‘justice’ as a ping-pong ball, first on one side of the table, then on the other. In the 1948 of Uris’s Exodus, Uris puts the words in Akiva’s mouth that state that, “in the fifth place,” in 1948, it’s the turn of someone else, not Jews, to experience injustice.
The “sixth place” is obvious: Jews have had their way for over 60 years. Not only have Palestinians borne injustices, those injustices have been perpetrated by Jews. In the sixth place, it is time for someone else, NOT Palestinians, to suffer injustice — or, per Gideon Levy, “relative justice.”
Palestinians deserve justice.
As Levy said, justice is the RIGHT of Palestinians.
In the logic of Leon Uris, it is their turn to receive justice.
It was clear in 1947 that the UN partition was a sham which the Zionists would embrace only until they could seize more Palestinian land than was already unfairly allotted to them. They proceeded to do so immediately. The suggestion that had the Palestinians accepted partition the situation which exists for them today would be any different is disingenuous. To quote Jeff Halper from his most recent article, “…all Israeli governments are unwaveringly determined to maintain complete control of Palestine/Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, frustrating any just and workable solution based on Palestinian claims to self-determination.”
This has always been the stated intention of the Zionist movement. No amount of capitulation on the part of the Palestinians, in 1947, now or in the future, will change that fact. To believe that the Palestinians, by giving up any part of their land, their culture or their national identity, might derail the Zionist juggernaut is the real delusional hope. Until Israel is de-Zionized, no just solution can be implemented.
An absolutely basic fact is that Israel occupies all of the Mediterranean coast. It’s intrinsically the most valuable land; it affords strategic control over trade. Every country wants seacoast access for this purpose. In Latin America, landlocked Bolivia has been struggling for nearly a century to obtain a corridor to the Pacific.
Imagine that Palestine had been located in California. A fair two-state solution might involve creating separate states of North and South California, each with cities, coasts, agricultural valleys, and mountains.
But Israel’s stance, by analogy, is ‘We’ll take the entire Pacific coast, the Central Valley, the national parks and Lake Tahoe. You Palestinians can live on the dry east slope of the Sierras, with a lovely view of the intermountain desert. And by the way, we’ll maintain troop deployments on the Cali-Nevada border to maintain security. Such a deal!‘
Obviously such a two-state solution for California would be neither fair nor viable. A little rump state sandwiched between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Nevada border would have no future whatsoever. It would amount to another poverty-stricken Indian reservation.
As Israel demonstrates its bad faith by building the separation wall with no agreement on borders, it becomes clear that the two-state solution was a chimera, a stalling tactic, a diversion. The two-state solution proposed by Israel is geographically and strategically unacceptable.
But a viable two-state solution — such as slicing Israel and the West Bank from the coast to the Jordan Valley along an east-west beltline — would never be accepted by Israel. So forget about the two-state solution. It doesn’t exist and never will. Even bribed by America, the quisling Palestinian leadership isn’t going to put its neck in this lethal noose.
It’s gonna be a hard slog, but when the unified state of New Palestine is finally proclaimed, Israel’s apartheid wall will be torn down, just as the Berlin Wall was. Zionism, like eastern European communism and white supremacist Afrikaner nationalism, will be tossed on the scrapheap of history. All three of these hateful ideologies were based on human repression, elite privilege and denial of democratic equality.
Excellent analogy!
I hope I live to see the day that what you write in your last paragraph becomes reality. Even though, I’m not Palestinian, I feel like I have a God-given right to witness justice being done and I’m sure as hell going to fight tooth and nail for it.
I don’t think that Chomsky is perceived so much for his “solutions” to the Mideast conflict as he is as a critic of Zionist brutality. Chomsky says things like this to thousands of students everywhere who have never heard anything like it before. This is his real contribution, and nothing else:
Hijacking boats in international waters and killing passengers is, of course, a serious crime. The editors of the London Guardian are quite right to say that “If an armed group of Somali pirates had yesterday boarded six vessels on the high seas, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring many more, a Nato taskforce would today be heading for the Somali coast.” It is worth bearing in mind that the crime is nothing new.
For decades, Israel has been hijacking boats in international waters between Cyprus and Lebanon, killing or kidnapping passengers, sometimes bringing them to prisons in Israel including secret prison/torture chambers, sometimes holding them as hostages for many years.
There is still hope. Israel “never loses an opportunity” to go too far in its cruelty. Its madness, its fanaticism, seem to know no bounds. The world is tiring in the sense that the people of the world, upon learning about Gaza, about Mavi Marmara, about the wall, are beginning to react (in the BDS style and politically). Look at Turkey. One may hope that other nations (South American states?) will follow.
And the pendulum, stuck for far too long as if indefinitely suspended in the air above the maximalist Israeli position, may get unstuck and swing down. And when it swings, it will swing in the direction of some maximalist Palestinian position (either one democratic state or two states, 50%-50%). The USA, led somewhat by young Jews and brave Palestinians, is getting tired of Israel, of AIPAC, of our slavery. Obama’s neat trick (the groveling bribe) simply makes the point, and does “judo” on the American people, making us all more knowledgeable and tired of the USA’s slavery to AIPAC’s. We begin to recall that slavery is outlawed here.
As to Chomsky’s “all the rights of a state”, quite so, but only within its proper territory. And this raises the question which he ignores (as quoted): where, at the end of the day, will Israel’s proper territory be? every square inch is subject to negotiation. The longer the world waits for Israel to make a fair-sounding proposal, the more the people and nations will tire of Israel’s constant “I want what’s mine and I want most of what’s yours.” The world may “remember” UNGA-181 (1947) (55%-45%) and Israel may then bethink itself of a fairer proposal to the Palestinians. The UNSC is not powerless, and the USA may tire of using its veto.
The author dislikes suggestions that Palestinians give up hope. So do I.
Pabelmont, I’d add that the author disliking suggestions that Palestinians give up hope is good but not good enough. Phony sympathisers like Chomsky and J Street that are running interference for the Zionist satanic cause should be constantly called out as the spreaders of vaseline that they really are, as Kalithea has done here and I’d throw in Avnery for good measure. One cannot be a Palestinian sympathiser and be against BDS at the same time and a sympathizer that doesn’t talk about the Palestinians’ RoR is only putting on a show and buying more time for the bad guys.
“For all the non Palestinian “activists” who believe the one state solution will not work, please, do not advise the Palestinians to leave what is lawfully theirs.”
You are either saying one of two things. “the land is lawfully theirs”.
1. It belongs to individual Palestinians – In that case, there is a chain of title, perfected or relative that can be argued in a day in court. Granted, that those Palestinians that left (either by force or by intended temporary or even permanent abandonment) were not afforded their day in a color-blind court of law.
2. It belongs to some national Palestinian right, which is just an assertion, maybe based on a promise by some former colonial power, as Zionism was promised by some former colonial power (and exagerated fromthat promise, as Palestinian nationalism exagerates from that promise).
A national right is not democracy, whether Zionist exclusive national right or Palestinian.
Democracy is constructed of consent of the governed. And, in the case of Israel/Palestine, whether you like the veto power that Zionists have or not, there is an overwhelming majority in Israel that desires to self-govern as Israel.
If you want to call yourself Palestinian nationalist in that regard, please be honest enough to acknowledge that you are NOT a proponent of democracy, at least one present person, one vote.
And, as galling as it may sound, there has never yet been a Palestinian nation-state. As many progressive intellectuals including Rashid Khalidi and Baruch Kimmerling have commented, any concept of Palestinian national identity as distinct from pan-Arab identity is really recent in both origination and maturation.
It is undeniable now, but it is not “its always been”.
It’s nice to see you admit that Israel is not a democracy, neither now, nor ever.
That’s not as galling as defining the national identity for other people. Last I checked, you were blathering about self-determining self-determination. And yet, you do not apply that standard to non-Zionists. You and other delusional Zionists exhibit the same symptoms. Predictable.
And you accuse me of twisting.
There are only two options for political form:
1. Two – state via partition
2. Single state
If 48% or more of the population feel that they are governed by imposition in a single state, then that is LESS democratic than in a partition in which 80% feel that they are self-governed.
I’m not sure how you conclude differently, except to describe your “reasoning” as more prevailing than the will of the people, somehow in the name of democracy.
Of course. Duh. It’s my logic that’s off kilter.
How dare I expect the definition, “Democracy is constructed of consent of the governed,” to be universally true and apply equally across the board?
Don’t you get it? Your logic requires the use of caveats every other line, simply because it doesn’t agree with your biased world view.
“… It belongs to individual Palestinians – In that case, there is a chain of title, perfected or relative that can be argued in a day in court. Granted, that those Palestinians that left (either by force or by intended temporary or even permanent abandonment) were not afforded their day in a color-blind court of law.”
RW, you are either ignorant of some important facts or you are simply being dishonest. Israel for over 60 years has been sytematically destroying all records, traces and vestiges of past Palestinian history on the land whether through the bulldozing and dynamiting of whole villages or through the theft of land registries and other title records such as the robberies in 2002 when it ransacked the various Palestinian ministries and carted away all the records or in 1982 when it did likewise at the Palestinian Information Center in Beirut.
Of typical Zionist mentality, after you have confiscated the Palestinian’s title to his home and proceeded to burn it down and done away with the land registries, you are implying he should come to an Israeli court to plead his case knowing all too well how impossible this is in light of the laws that were enacted to block him from returning to Palestine to plead his case. Maybe you’re just plain dishonest and going through this Zionistic hollow talk to help your troubled conscience.
And, to conduct title determinations on the basis of abstract and potentially arbitrary strictly political basis IS to deny current residents their civil rights.
You illustrate the point of advocacy of justice not being for justice perse, but for “justice for mine”, or not justice for individuals but national “justice”.
My mother-in-law’s family’s property in Hungary was taken by the Hungarian state in 1944, then transferred to the socialist Hungarian state, and became the town’s public library. Unjustly, there was no current basis to track the history of title. (She didn’t even try.)
She didn’t start receiving general reparations (in compensation for her year in a German slave labor camp). The Hungarian government never compensated, not the fascist pro-nazi Hungarian government, nor the socialist Hungarian government, nor the modern Hungarian government. She was “invited” to return though.
Hungarian speaking residents of neighboring now Ukraine were also invited to return, but not to unified Hungary, only to Ukraine.
The relevant approach to justice is NOT to penalize for past wrongs, as past wrongs were mutual. In both communities, individuals, families were harmed by larger political movements, and in both communities, individuals are proposed to be harmed by larger national and trans-national political movements.
The relevant approach is to facilitate the communities’ health, and that should be asserted strongly, not compliantly.
Accept injustice done to your people, or those that you advocate for, partially YES. I accept and move on from injustices done to me everyday.
Rather than let the past be my prison. The present is my liberation.
“… And, to conduct title determinations on the basis of abstract and potentially arbitrary strictly political basis IS to deny current residents their civil rights.”
RW, what you are saying is that because now there are current residents with civil rights, screw the rights of the past residents that the Zionists kicked out. Why should the rights of the current Jewish residents be more important than those of the former residents, unless you are insinuating that the 800,000 evicted Palestinians had no rights to start with? Strange mentality.
I am saying that current residents vote, and prior residents’ rights extend only to title and possible future residence.
Anything less than current democracy is reactionary. 1948 is long past.
If you’ve read, I have advocated for those dispossessed in 1948 and even some with evidence to support title claims, to their day in court.
yes but that majority you speak of is illegiatmiate. its was achieved through force and naked aggression. allowing the palestinians to return to their lands and being able to vote is true democracy. illegally alter the population so you can have a majority is not, has ever been , nor ever will be democracy
As was the majority in EVERY political jurisdiction.
You are either pro-democracy as in one present person, one present vote, or you are an advocate of something less than democratic.
@ Wittless ; “You are either pro-democracy as in one present person, one present vote, or you are an advocate of something less than democratic.”
Exactly!! And that is why the One state solution, with full rights for every inhabitant of the One state, is the only workable, humane and just solution.
You are tripped up by your own dishonest use of that logic, Witty – “one present person, one present vote” – one vote for every person in the territory controlled by Israel – from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.
What exists at present IS a one state – albeit a racist militaristic fascist Zionist state – all that is being proposed is to change the nature of the state, from that of a racist militaristic fascist Zionist state to one in which all the inhabitants of the territory currently controlled by that current racist militaristic fascist Zionist state, have their basic human rights respected.
How could anyone object to that if they truly were a humanist, if they truly were interested in Peace or even justice?
Surely since you so often loudly proclaim your ‘humanist’ credentials, you cannot object to such a thing – or at least you could not if you were an actual sincere humanist rather than the pseudo-humanist pro-Zionist sophist that you appear to be
China, india, germany, poland, mongolia none of these achieved majority that way
also the use of force to control the population is not democracy unless of course were operating under your ideas. hey I guess we should just kick out all the jews than the palestinians will be the majority and it will be ok because well one present person one present vote
Prior to 1948, Jews were a minority within the political “jurisdiction” of the armistice lines demarcating what’s generally accepted today as Israel. As of 1946, they were a minority in every district in Palestine except Jaffa. They achieved majority status by mass murder and terror. So to approve the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel is to approve mass murder and terror. It’s to approve things like ordering people out of their homes at gunpoint and across the scrimmage line, or lining them up against walls and gunning them down in mass.
Give me a legal and moral argument why people who are legal residents of the parts of Palestine that became Israel, in particular the 5+ million refugees, should not have a vote in the nature of their state? Those refugees all had property in Palestine they were forced to leave behind, if only the gravestones of their great-grandparents.
You are arguing that only Jewish Israelis have a vote in the nature of the state or states in mandatory Palestine, and because they want a Jewish state, it would be “undemocratic” to have anything else. All the refugees were denied their right to live in their original homes for 62 years. All the refugees were denied citizenship and other rights, including the right to vote in the nature of their state, on the basis that they weren’t Jewish, for 62 years. Why does a people being denied rights mean that a people should continue to be denied rights?
Richard Witty
” You are either saying one of two things. “the land is lawfully theirs”.
1. It belongs to individual Palestinians “
‘real estate’ is not ‘territory’. Individuals own ‘real estate’. ‘territory’ belongs to all the citizens of an entity
” It belongs to some national Palestinian right, which is just an assertion”
It wasn’t declared as Israeli, or Lebanese, or Syrian, or Jordanian, or Egyptian. It has never been legally annexed by Israel.
“And, as galling as it may sound, there has never yet been a Palestinian nation-state.”
So what? States don’t exist until they are declared.
So what you are saying, Witty, is that the Jews in Germany were theirs (the German’s) for the killing, and since the Jews didn’t have their own nation, constituted in a way you approved of, they were fair game.
As for Israel as an international Jewish state, do the math:
Israel = occupation
Judaism ≠ occupation
Israel ≠ Judaism
And that is why I hate Zionism. To be perfectly frank, it’s an ethnocentric hatred. While I recognize the Palestinians are Zionism’s primary victims, I hate Zionism for what it has done to the Jews.
Very moving, Sara. Thank you for stating your position so eloquently and basing it on the need for universal and fundamental human rights that have been abridged for decades in Israel/Palestine.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Thank you, Tree.
But here are some cautionary words from Leonard Peltier, a survivor of another ethnic cleaning: link to tinyurl.com
We cannot settle for what is “realistic” because that means settling for what is most convenient to the U.S. and Israel.
personally i think the only realist position is that one state is inevitable. that how it looks to me.
So as to thwart the Zionist’s dream of “from the Nile to the Euphrades” and at the same time realixe the Palestinian’s dream of regaining their birthright, Palestine, two things: (1) putting daylight between the settler-state and its sponsor, the U.S. of A. – by challenging the Israel Lobby & its subsidiaries (the President, Congress & MSM) with their dual loyalty treachery; and (2) – BDS, BDS, BDS.
One of the most important lessons to be derived from the past 60+ years of Israel’s history is that Zionism is a failed experiment that has brought only bloodshed, Apartheid and growing fascism. Time to remove it from the equation. Time to restore Democracy, demand full rights for Palestinians and equal rights for all.
The “hope” of a single state, is the hope for “no Israel”.
And that is in contravention of international law short of consent of the super-majority of the governed.
Phil? Adam?
hope, hounorm duty, obligation, and the law all call for no Israel it is the only just, legal, and honourable outcome to do away with that that should have never been. sadly because of 60 years worth of efforts of people like you and truly just outcome would be cruel to the criminal decendents of the criminals you defend
That is in conflict with international law.
Israel has had more than 6 decades to comply with the UN partition plan. The Zionists did everything possible since to render this partition impossible. In other words: Israel had a fair and very good chance to establish a viable Jewish state, and she blew it.
Not really it is the only stance that actually truly follows international law. most people are too cowardly to say so because of the Israel lobby
“The “hope” of a single state, is the hope for “no Israel”.”
Correction Witty. The “hope” of a single state, is the hope for a democratic state called Israel. Israel won’t go away in the event of a single state, but your utopia of an ethnocentric fantasy might.
The leaders of Israel are committed to a single state, so does that mean they are hoping for no Israel?
“And that is in contravention of international law short of consent of the super-majority of the governed.”
Not when that government is committed to only one state existing. BTW. Your super-majority of the governed argument put s a lie to your argument that Likud is inconsistent with what Israel has always been.
If the majority of Israelis want to continue the current situation, their position is immoral.
Thus, claiming “right of majority”, “consent of the governed”, does not apply.
There cannot be a moral right to behave immorally, no matter how many people vote for that immorality.
@ Witty
“The “hope” of a single state, is the hope for “no Israel”.”
No it is not
It is the hope of no more Zionist racism and Zionist Fascism. Nothing more.
“And that is in contravention of international law short of consent of the super-majority of the governed.”
No it is not – it is NOT against international law to change the political nature/regime of a state, ANY state.
Please cite the relevant section of whatever International Law code you claim backs up your ridiculous assertion.
While Arafat was still alive Yaser Abed Rabo and Yossi Beilin negotiated the “Geneva Accord”, a pseudo peace treaty as a framework towards a future between Palestinians and Israelis. A treaty was never signed but a vision was agreed upon by two persons from the “mainstream” of both societies. It is natural to be drawn in that direction and to consider the right of return issue an obstacle. Those who wish to remain steadfast to the earlier dedication are within their rights. But there are other attitudes as well. With a compromise nowhere in sight now is a fine time for drawing plans and the structures of the single state as envisioned.
Wouldn’t you have to predict that left to their own devices that a Palestinian state would devolve into a Hamas state?
So you are actually becoming a single-statist, W.J.? Equal rights for all?
Great progess, if so!
I think he is saying that the proponents of a single state don’t mean equal rights for all.
Richard,
Are you implying bad faith on the part of one-staters? Tell me who and I’ll sort them out straight away.
Ask Wondering Jew what he meant.
But that’s exactly what we mean – Equal Rights for all the inhabitants of the territory currently controlled by Israel – nothing more, nothing less – it’s a very simple concept for any intelligent honest person to get their head around, Witty – maybe if you practice a little on your honesty-skilsl you might even be able to manage it too
equal rights means everyone gets their legally accorded rights without prejudice it doesn’t mean as you imply that because you thought you had a right to take from someone they don’t get their legal mandated right to return to their property. the palestinians getting to return to their property in stolen palestine(what you refer to as Israel and the settlements) and having title and deed to it removing jewish comtrol over it is equal rights because the palestinains have a right to return to it and the jews living on it have no right to it. illegitiamte aquiring of property cannot confer a legal right to it
RoHa- I am not a single statist. But certainly when the route of “realism” is obstructed, this is a golden opportunity to do some original thinking regarding one state. Since my primary objection to a single state is that I regard the safety of the Jewish population to be at risk under such a solution, original thought in the direction of allaying such fears would be progress.
A two state solution of peace would have two countries tightly bound to each other and would require much thought and preparation as well. Ideas for a one state could help guide us to a better future, even if the first step is a two state solution.
so the criminals matter more than their victims. the wicked should fear justice but it is not an excuse to prevent justice.
“this is a golden opportunity to do some original thinking regarding one state.”
Excellent! Get to it.
“Since my primary objection to a single state is that I regard the safety of the Jewish population to be at risk under such a solution,”
And look at that! Your primary concern is not for the maintanance of the “Jewishness” or any of that stuff, but just for the safety of part of the population. Of course, the safety of the whole population should be our concern, but that is still progress.
Progress! I sound like some sort of therapist or counsellor, don’t I?
Perhaps Mondweiss should run meetings where people can “share” their efforts to break free of Ziocaine (TM) addiction.
Ro Ha, Wondering Jew has admitted, more than once, that his interest in the Jewish State boils down to: “What can the Fredman’s get for free?”
From what I know of Palestinian society, historically it’s been very tolerant. Christians were among the leaders of the nationalist movement and of course they were firm advocates of religious tolerance. Of course the Zionist invaders made every effort to destroy that society and maybe destroyed a good deal of the tolerance. WJ, maybe you should understand what your state has tried to destroy as the first step.
Secondly, if you actually have a state with equal rights, one person one vote, Hamas members will likely get no more a share of the votes than the extremist Jews. On top of that, from what I read half the Hamas leadership believes in persuasion as a means to getting a Muslim state – i.e. democratic means. They aren’t a united front when it comes to political ideology – sure, some are intolerant. However, I would bet anything that the more tolerant ideology would win out bigtime if it were successful, i.e., Israel accepted the right of Palestinians to live in their own land. If you’d been paying close attention, you might have noticed that Hamas leadership has always welcomed Jews, including Zionists such as Jeff Halper, who visit them in the spirit of justice. The main reason to believe that they’re out to kill Jews is the much exaggerated Israeli propaganda.
Lyn,
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree. Hamas’s welcome to Jeff Halper is not proof regarding the soft heartedness, humanism or tolerance inherent in Hamas’s philosophy.
I think that any movement to use religion as a tool of liberation is natural. We who are the “oppressors” should not limit ourselves to listening to the intolerant portion of the rhetoric of their leadership.
But there is a limit to my suspension of disbelief and Hamas has not shown the positive signs that you enumerate. I favor negotiations with Hamas. I recognize Islam as a great religion and do not denigrate it based only on certain elements of its history and certain verses in the Kuran. But frankly Hamas has a long way to go to prove the hopes that you seem to have for them.
If you’re unaware of history, you might conclude that.
If you are aware of history and understand the social dynamics of occupation and oppression, then you will know that will not be the case.
1. Hamas was created by Israel. If you want an article to read about that, let me know and I’ll post the entire text here.
2. Palestinian society has always been among the most liberal and secular in the region (I’m not even including Saudi Arabia in this category). Thus, Hamas is an anomaly in Palestinian history.
3. Hamas wasn’t elected for its religious beliefs, but for a lack of a viable alternative. Where you really unaware of that fact?
Avi- 1. Israel’s Machiavellian role in the creation of Hamas does not make Hamas any less dangerous. That’s like saying Frankenstein’s monster was not dangerous to Doctor Frankenstein because he created it.
2. Hamas could be elected because they have a catchy slogan for all I care. Once they are in power it won’t make any difference why people voted for them. (on this subject: a bet: when do you think the next elections will be held in the Gaza strip. Not very soon, huh? Hamas will get into power by the ballot, but it will never leave once it has power. This is not a hard and fast law, but it is a reasonable fear if not an overriding probability.)
It’s good to know that you’re a rejectionist at heart.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but facts and logic will never sway me.
Avi- Usually I take the term “rejectionist” to mean someone who rejects negotiations and I favor Israel negotiating with Hamas, as delineated by Yossi Alpher bitterlemons.org
I get the feeling that this discussion is taking place in some kind of time warp: it’s 1947 , let’s debate the pros and cons of establishing Israel as a Jewish state…
Well, people, it’s 2010, Israel is here to stay, it’s not going to evaporate , disappear or commit collective suicide. It’s existence is not in question. The Palestinians are the ones who need- and deserve – a state of their own. The 2-state solution is the only way to advance towards a future of peace for our two peoples.
Jon,
It’s not 1967, either. Both the problems created in ’48 and those created since ’67 must be addressed, if a peaceful arrangement is to have any lasting value. For most Jewish Israelis, whatever happened before ’67 is good and legitimate and untouchable. Most Palestinians however, don’t see it that way, and their needs and concerns must be addressed, if anything resembling a real process of reconciliation and problem resolution is to take place.
The Jews who live in Israel, and the culture and society they have built are not going to disappear – nor should they, as that would simply be adding injustice to injustice. But the institutions and system they have built cannot be beyond change or question. For example, do you believe that Israel should be a “state of all its citizens”, i.e. a state that affords citizens of all religions and ethnicities precisely the same rights? If not, how is that justifiable and how is it tenable in the long run?
Why shouldn’t Israel disappear. what is just about letting criminals off scot free? Why should they be rewarded for refusing to follow the law?
‘Israel’ doesn’t have to ‘disappear’ at all – it merely has to change it’s political nature from the current racist militaristic one to one that actually respects the human rights of all the inhabitants of the territory currently controlled by it, regardless of race, creed, colour etc.
better for it to just go bye bye less chance for the demons of the past to screw things up.
That’s strange phraseology, Shmuel. I know you didn’t mean it this way, but it’s as though you’re saying history be damned. It’s as though the Palestinian point of view is the one that forms the framework, not international law.
And if “Most” Palestinians see it that way, does that mean that some Palestinians don’t care about what happened in 1948? Does that mean that they are ignorant of international law and unaware of their basic rights?
No need to fear for my soul Avi :-) I was trying to use language I thought Jon would be able to relate to (based on Shenhav’s central argument in Time of the Green Line).
I don’t know how “all” Palestinians feel. I haven’t spoken to them. I figured “most” would do nicely.
Va yavo Avi va yomaar, “Bilbaltah Otie”.
Vaya’an Shmuel lemor: “Ein davar. Gam zeh ya’avor.”
So Shmuel, you figure Zionism has been bad for the Palestinians, but good for the Jews?
So Shmuel, you figure Zionism has been bad for the Palestinians, but good for the Jews?
I figure like you figure, but there are a whole lot of Jews who figure differently. Go figure.
“The only way to settle this argument over who gets the pizza is to negotiate…(shoves pizza into my face as quickly as possible)”
“Hey, you’re eating the pizza we’re supposed to be negotiating over, this is bullshit!”
“Shut up and take the crumbs left in the box”
Thank you for the reminder that it’s 2010. As such, Zionism does not belong on the face of the planet, especially in the 21st century. It’s anathema to human rights, to equality and to democracy.
Your claim regarding a Palestinian state is all nice and dandy, but you forget that 20% of Israel’s population is comprised of citizens who are Palestinian. And that renders Israel an ethnochracy, as is the case now. So, either way, Zionism is anachronistic.
Incidentally, no one is stopping you from recreating Zionism every Rosh Hashana in Brooklyn, much in the same way some southerners enjoy recreating the battle of Bull Run. Whatever you do, just don’t bulldoze entire apartment buildings confusing them for Palestinian villages.
Sara, this article is really good and as you can see the only people who disagree with you are zionists and one marxist.
I think it was Finkelstein who referred to a “cult” around BDS, with Chomsky citing Finkelstein. But if you’re going to argue against a cult-like characterization, it’s better to do it without saying that there is “no room for uncertainty” and “you are with us or against us”. Otherwise it sounds like you’re simply supporting Finkelstein’s point.
Also, it is not what is “most convenient for the US and Israel”. The whole point of serious supporters of a two-state solution is that it is opposed by Israel and the US, while supported by almost every other country. How that means supporting something which is “most convenient for the US and Israel” isn’t clear to me, but there is no room for uncertainty or for questioning.
Check out A.B. Yehoshua’s article in today’s Haaretz:
link to haaretz.com
A.B. Yehoshua’, the racist non-liberal who calls himself a liberal.
1. Yehuda Shenhav on Yehoshua’
2. Ikrit and Bir’am and Yehoshua’s “liberalism”
***
how amusing jon
this is what i hear: ‘ to improve the public discourse…..to do the utmost to limit the demonization of Israel…….I will try to formulate the concept of Zionism ….. to improve its flavor!
hence, the author will start dismissing the idea zionism is an ideology by choosing a definition of ideology which excludes zionism by his own definition of zionism (how typically ideological!):
needless to say we are not all bound by the hebrew encyclopedia’s definition!
stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
the source goes on to explain
# 1. Liberal Concepts of Ideology
# 2. Radical Concepts of Ideology
# 3. Ideology and the Sources of Law
# 4. Ideology and the Rule of Law
# 5. Conclusion: Ideology and Justice
here’s some liberal thought:
sounds like zionism to me!
here’s some radical thought:
sounds like zionism to me! and now back to yehoshua
to improve the public discourse…..to do the utmost to limit the demonization of Israel…….I will try to formulate the concept of Zionism
sounds like an ideologue!!!!!!!
one more thing, just to give you an idea of what a wacked out ideologue yehoshua is, in his article he asserts zionism hopes, zionism promises, zionism keeps promises and zionism aspires. ( like a person?)
which sounds exactly like a radical definition of ideology! he tries to claim it is not an ideology because there were dozens of interpretations and political and social viewpoints. but ideologues of the same ilk do not all have to agree with eachother, they just have to agree about main central themes. what a nut.
Actually please don’t. Even as adversary, I care more about your safety than to expose you to the consequences of that “honest” statement.
That was a response to an earlier unposted quote of asking that Avi make the claim that “Israel created Hamas” to an actual Hamas official, or militia.
sure witty, that makes perfect sense.
like everything Witty says – it only makes sense if you don’t try at all to understand what he is saying – mangling language and logic seems to be his hobby
Mondoweiss didn’t post the second post originally, a glitch.
Avi stated “Israel created Hamas”
I said, I dare you to tell that to Hamas militia.
I later said, please don’t do that. Even in jest I don’t wish you harm.
This is a most illuminating thread. There is apparently not one pragmatic or realistic bone in the BDS movement. Chomsky is completely correct. What the movement cares about is “justice”, not about improving the situation of the Palestinians. The Arab and Palestinian leadership irresponsibly gambled with the Palestinians future in 47 and 48. You are doing the same now and it will lead to the same results. Smart people try to reduce downside risks. What you are doing increases these risks significantly.
Keep blaming the victim.
You remind me of the immoral monsters who go around blaming women for being raped.
In fact, you’re no different than Saudi Wahabists who tell a rape victim that she had it coming because of the way she dressed. Or police officers in the US who question a woman’s credibility, accusing her of seeking attention.
That’s you. You just don’t see yourself for the monster that you are.
It’s anyone’s guess why Zionists, the Taliban and Wahabists don’t get along. You have so much in common.
In contrast, the movement for peace (rather than the movement for “justice for us”) says “stop blaming at all”.
Instead orient your argument around what improves welfare, which requires knowing and respecting the other.
You have a good chance to become a greeting card writer, you know, the type of cards they have at gas stations.
how can you respect a group that basically says you have zero right to your land even though your family owned for hundred of years, that your not a people, and routinuely demand you give up your rights in favour of their wants? the simple fact that there are people to blame in this debacle and it is the people you defend who are to blame.
“In contrast, the movement for peace (rather than the movement for “justice for us”) says “stop blaming at all”.”
In other words, you don’t believe peace requires justice.
by peace you mean F the law Israel gets what it wants you want neither justice nor peace but your ilks’ whims to be met
Listen to yourself. Now 99% of Israeli Jews, the majority of US Jews and a huge portion of the US public, not to mention all the leaders of Europe, the US and most of the world are “monsters”. Also there is a large percentage of the Palestinians themselves who prefer a negotiated 2 state solution. Being shrill and extreme will get you nowhere. And besides, what is so moral about your position which is basically that you either attain a solution based on your own concept of “justice” or the Palestinians continue suffering for more decades if need be?
it says something about you that you call demanding the palestinians get all their rights as extreme
If you keep conflating, you just might blow a fuse. But, don’t worry, someone will come along and turn the circuit breaker back on.
You’re such a good humanist.
My concept of justice is based on international law and on most of the moral edicts of any religion on earth, including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.
But, you’re right. Here I am expecting a Zionist to understand such concepts as universal justice. Shame on me, what was I thinking.
Demanding rights is not extreme. Not willing to compromise on anything in order to reach a solution, is. Each side has rights it believes it has a right to demand. In many cases these rights are conflicting. Therefore, compromise is the only solution except for violence.
What compromises has Israel made?
wrong each side thinks it has rights it believes it has a right to demand one side though rights aren’t real and that would Israel’s
by compromise you of course mean the palestinians give up their legally mandated rights for Israeli wants which you refer to as rights. No one should ever have to trade away some of their rights for others which is what you demand of the palestinians
your idea of justice is nothing more the the destruction of the palestinian people and the giving of their god given rights to those that invaded and conquered their lands
Incoherent eee.
Rights are law-based, not made of magical fairy dust (where all you have to do is believe). Palestinians have rights – based in international law – which Israel has spent more than 60 years denying. The list of grievances continues to grow.
No. “These rights” aren’t conflicting, it is Israelis seeking to legitimise denial of Palestinians rights by the use of elaborate bureaucratic systems which simulate legality and justice. An example of this is house demolitions. Nearly 25,000 Palestinians homes have been demolished by Israel in the OPTs since 1967. Many of these are as a result of homes being built “illegally” because they weren’t built with permits Israel refuses to issue. But Israel has no legal rights in international law to control house building in the OPTs, and certainly no right to move in 500,000 illegal squatters.
The only sustainable solution is neither exclusively compromise or violence, it is observation of international as it relates to both Israeli and Palestinian rights. The current “peace process” formulation is designed to compel Palestinians to compromise under threat of present and future violence – the violence perpetrated daily by Israel (and backed by the US) to maintain the occupation.
When you say “compromise is the only solution”, it is only ever Palestinians who are expected to compromise. If you disagree, feel free to provide a single example of any concession or compromise Israel has made in any post-1993 negotiation.
eee
” Demanding rights is not extreme. “
Indeed…..In fact, it’s a right.
“Not willing to compromise on anything in order to reach a solution, is.”
It’s a right not to compromise ones rights. It’s extreme to ILLEGALLY demand rights to which one has no right, thereby preventing the legitimate, legal rights of the Palestinians being realized.
“Each side has rights it believes it has a right to demand.”
There is a vast difference between belief and denial.
The Palestinians have a right to demand their FULL rights under law. The law tells us their belief is well founded.
Under the SAME laws, those Israel obliged itself to uphold, Israel does not have a right to demand any territory outside the extent of its declared sovereignty. Consecutive Israeli Governments have been aware of the laws they have consistently breached. The UNSC has told ‘em. To ‘believe’ otherwise, is denial.
Their Ziofied twaddlespiel ‘explanations’ depend on a status quo NOT looking very closely at what they’re told to ‘believe’ to deny.
“In many cases these rights are conflicting.”
Well, no. Israel has NO right to deny the Palestinians rights and it has no right as the Occupying Power to usurp the occupied, assist illegal settlers, illegally annex, illegally institute Israeli civil law in “territories occupied” and never un-occupied (i.e., still occupied)
What IS conflicting is Israel’s intransigence
The Palestinians are not infringing on anyone’s legitimate rights.
“Therefore, compromise is the only solution except for violence.”
How about adhere to the law instead?
true much of Israel’s much vaunted and talked about “rights” are nothing of the such
what is irresposible about refusing to give up your rights to another simply because they want you too? for you to blame the palestinians for refusing to meekly to submit to bully’s demands is reprehensible.
Compromise will surely be an integral part in helping craft Israel’s new Post-Zionism constitution. Perhaps a compromise will be on the name of the state. Perhaps a compromise will be for currently all Palestinian cities to have street signs written in Hebrew as well. Maybe a compromise will be government funding of Hebrew language private schools.
But, fundamental rights are another thing entirely and they cannot ever be compromised. Things like refugees returning, tearing down the wall, ending colonization of the West Bank, lifting the siege of Gaza, and equal rights for all written into the constitution are fundamental rights.
I think you misunderstand the concept of compromise “eee”
I just posted this elsewhere but it actually belongs here: Lieberman says Israel is above and beyond international law and can therefore do whatever it likes
link to coteret.com
I think that the fundamental (relevant) right is the right to be enfranchised, because that is the essential thing ensuring that the state is ‘for’ the individuals who live under its power, excluding the possibility that some people will be enslaved and so of legitimating sovereign power. When that right (always hitherto denied to the Palestinians) is finally secured other rights may have to be compromised in the genuine interest of all. I would think that when there is one Palestinian state it will be a new thing, not fully bound to maintain all the rights of property that existed in the former Palestine or in the former Israel but needing to make some arrangements that will best meet the interests of all its mixed multitude of citizens without prejudice of race.
Because enfranchisement is fundamental the break-up of empires and federations does not create a right to disfranchise anyone, meaning that when a break-up occurs everyone should be an enfranchised citizen of the successor state where (s)he lives. The fact, which gets mentioned, that Palestine is a fragment of old empires does not weaken but on the contrary emphasises that Palestinians always had and will always keep, except for individuals who renounce it, the right to be enfranchised in Palestine.
During the first few months of the Al Aqsa intifadeh the PLO or PA published a statement in the New York Times in which the leadership of the Palestinians recognized Israel’s “demographic realities” but felt a need to solve the problem of the Palestinians in Lebanon and needed Israeli cooperation for that group of refugees.
I do not have the ad in front of me nor do I recall its date.
Arafat was not the be all and the end all of authorities in what might be suggested in newspaper ads and what in fact ended up being signed and agreed to.
There is no need to apologize for demanding one’s rights. There is also no need for apologizing for wishing to minimize blood shed in the short range, middle range or long range, any or all.
Well, it seems to me that everyone here who believes Palestinians should compromise their rights such as the right of return, or self-determination, make the argument that by doing so they might achieve recognition of their right to life – or at least their life, maybe not recognition of right to it.
For example,
That is, eee was saying that by accepting an undemocratic partition, recommended after heavy Zionist lobbying at the U.N., one which denied them their right to vote in what form of independent government they would set up or country they would form, they would have avoided the “suffering” of the mass murders and terror of the Zionists driving them out of their land – a dubious proposition anyway – the Zionists had long meditated ways and means of ridding Palestine of the Arabs.
What is being argued is that one should give up rights in order to ease suffering. An also, and on the same coin, those demanding one give up rights have free reign to cause suffering to those who demand their rights. This is like saying to southern or South African Blacks that they should not have demanded the right to vote, because they might be lynched, jailed or beaten, or killed.
I believe in equal rights for all, but in two states.
Equal rights for Jews and Arabs and others in Jewish majority Israel, AND equal rights for Arabs and Jews and others in Arab majority Palestine.
That optimizes self-governance, self-determination. A single state in the current setting threatens to oppress.
so you believe in the right of conquest. you think “equal” rights is foriegners getting a country and the natives the natives getting the scraps left. your solution doesn’t optimize anything. it denies self determination to the rightful lawful popultion of the territory of palestine.
please quit using the phrase self determination and its derivitives. it clear you refuse to use the phrase in accordance with it definition and your continued use of it in the way you are is dishonest and an insult to the rest of us intelligence. we aren’t stupid we see what you are doing and it is at least offensive to me. you cannot just change the meanings of things so you can get you way.
Richard Witty
A single state is what Israel has desired, sought to achieve, created facts on the ground towards, excused itself for starting premptive wars in order to keep.
It’s precisely where Israel has been heading for 62 years, knowing full well in order to be a democratic Jewish Greater Israel, it will have to usurp non-Jewish inhabitants.
The majority in Israel prefers “enough Israel” NOT “greater Israel”.
If given an actual chance to vote on a specific viable proposal, I think their answer will be obviously supportive.
Your opening paragraph is self-talk. There are MANY perspectives within the Israeli electorate and government. ALL (with a very few exceptions) recognize Israel’s right to exist and to defend.
To imagine that there is prevailing logic or force to remove Israel as Israel is really just odd thinking.
To invest in a single state effort by either force or “non-violent” force of BDS, is to functionally advocate for the continuation of injustice rather than the resolution of injustice.
**The majority in Israel prefers “enough Israel” NOT “greater Israel”.
no they clearly want a greater Israel. that which wasn’t their that they got in partitian wasn’t enough, the conquest of 48 wasn’t enough, the conquest of 67 wasn’t enough, each new settlement and expansion on palestinian property isn’t enough how can you say they want enough Israel when what they have stolen so far is never enough?
**If given an actual chance to vote on a specific viable proposal, I think their answer will be obviously supportive.
yeah supportive of getting rid of the palestinians so they can completely erase palestine. Israel’s intentions toward the palestinians are the same as in 2 previous times what the germans and russians had in mind for the poles complete erasure from history
**Your opening paragraph is self-talk. There are MANY perspectives within the Israeli electorate and government. ALL (with a very few exceptions) recognize Israel’s right to exist and to defend.
there you go making up rights for Israel again. Israel has no right to exist no country truly does but the closest one can come is trough the legitiamate expression of self determination which ISrael is the opposite of.
**To imagine that there is prevailing logic or force to remove Israel as Israel is really just odd thinking.
To invest in a single state effort by either force or “non-violent” force of BDS, is to functionally advocate for the continuation of injustice rather than the resolution of injustice.
So following the law is an injustuice. Seems to me your definition of injustice is jews not liking the result
The majority in Israel prefers “enough Israel” NOT “greater Israel”.
iow, all those journalists who wrote about the latest referendum as being the death knell for the 2 state solution were wrong. iow you think it was actually a boost to negotiation because of this alleged majority you cite.
iow you were not supportive of those who walked out or voted no @ the knesset. you’re w/bibi and shahs on this right?
lol
When you’ve actually thought about it enough to be able to quantify how much this “enough” means, and where, give a ring, Polonius!
Let me make it simple for all you anti-Jewists. Look for most people, basing your actions on the will to power and the power of the will, with no respect for human life, law, or morality is very bad. But for Jews, it’s all right, because people were mean to us once. (But after all, like the Palestinians, we weren’t a “nation” or “state then, so it’s all right)
Anyway, right there is the essential point which Witty, eee, Wondering Jew and the rest of their ilk argue over and over, with ever more delusional arguments.
“There are MANY perspectives within the Israeli electorate and government.”
vox populi 2010, Jewish Israelis, according to Avnery:
“There will never be peace between us and the Arabs, because the Arabs don’t want it.
The Arabs want to slaughter us, always did and always will.
Every Arab learns from early childhood that the Jews must be killed.
The Koran preaches murder.
Fact, wherever there are Muslims, there is terrorism. Wherever there is terrorism, there are Muslims.
We must not give the Arabs one square inch of the country.
What did we get when we gave them Gaza back? We got Qassam rockets!
There’s nothing to be done about it. Only to hit them on the head and send them back to the countries they came from.
According to the Talmudic injunction: He who comes to kill you, kill him first.”
link to original.antiwar.com
2002 perspective:
link to counterpunch.org